Affirmative action is a subject of intense debate. Supporters point to the increased representation of women and minority groups while critics contend that affirmative action can lead to inefficiencies. In this paper we present results from two field experiments that were designed to test how...

Affirmative action to promote women's employment is a intensely debated policy. Do affirmative action policies attract women and does it come at a cost of deterring high qualified men? In three field experiments in Colombia we compare characteristics of job-seekers who are told of the...

Under which circumstances do individuals engage in unfair competition practices, and what consequences do these forms of misdeeds have on prosociality? Employing an artefactual field experiment in Madagascar, we show that 39 percent of participants engage in unfair competitive practices....

Gender equity in the creation and enforcement of social norms is important not only as a normative principle but it can also support long term economic growth. Yet in most societies, coercive power is in the hands of men. We investigate whether this form of segregation is due to inherent gender...

This dissertation presents three independent essays that elicit social preferences in school children by using a combination of experimental measures and survey data. Chapter 2 consider the development of motivations for helping in informal risk-sharing networks from a sample of school children...

Affirmative action changes incentives at all stages of the employment process. In this paper, we study the effects of affirmative action statements in job ads on i) the effort expended on the application process and ii) the manifestation of emotions, as measured by the textual analysis of the...

This dissertation presents four independent papers that advance experimental methods and test theories on saving using experimentally elicited characteristics. The first two papers test two behavioral theories on precautionary saving based on the characteristics loss aversion and prudence by...

If there were no impediments to the flow of capital across space, then the returns to capital should be equalized. We provide evidence to the contrary. There are large differences in the return to comparable investments across different towns in the state of Tamil Nadu in South India. We explore...

We study a micro-finance program that provides compulsory health insurance to its borrowers and their spouses. We find that the non-borrowing spouses are less likely to file insurance claims than those who are borrowing. Further, a man is more likely to use the health insurance acquired through...